All posts tagged Taxes

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) on Thursday delivered what amounted to closing arguments ahead of the November elections, laying out a list of Republican priorities including a tax overhaul, changes to the U.S. legal system and reduced federal regulation.

In remarks made at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Boehner also highlighted a number of politically-divisive issues that were put on hold in Congress ahead of the November elections. Read More »

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows strong support for congressional action to keep American companies from moving overseas for tax reasons.

The results suggest that voters both are aware of the tactic – known as “inversion” – and actually care about it. That could help elevate its importance as both a policy and a political issue, as Congress and the Obama administration debate what to do.

About 59% of registered voters said they believe Congress should take action to “penalize and discourage companies” from inverting because it results in lost tax revenues in the U.S. About 32% disagreed, saying companies “have a duty to their shareholders to lower costs and grow their business.” Read More »

Judicial Watch, the conservative group, has landed another batch of emails from the Internal Revenue Service that raise new questions about the possible extent of alleged targeting of conservative groups. Read More »

The White House might need a new poster child for its “tax fairness” campaign.

Famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who President Barack Obama has lauded and named a signature proposal after, is helping finance a deal that would allow Burger King Worldwide Inc. to reincorporate in Canada and potentially reduce its U.S. tax bill through a so-called inversion, the Journal reported late Monday. Read More »

Earnings stripping involves loading up a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign-domiciled company with debt. When the U.S. subsidiary repays the foreign parent, interest payments are deductible from U.S. taxes. The effect is to remove earnings from the U.S., where the corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest in the developed world. Earnings stripping is one of the major benefits of engaging in a corporate inversion and it the target of congressional criticism. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Wednesday said he will propose new restrictions in Congress. Read More »

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is more stumbling than storming into the general election.

On Tuesday night, results from the GOP primary showed 37% of those voting cast their ballots for a Republican political newcomer over Mr. Brownback. Then Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Wednesday morning dropped Kansas’s credit rating by one notch, blaming the downgrade on a sharp slide in state revenues that followed deep tax cuts Mr. Brownback championed. Read More »

After a wave of corporate “inversions,” which are meant to reduce U.S. tax payments, the Obama administration is looking at ways to crack down and either limit the practice or change the economics of such moves.

Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on a lot these days, but the two parties’ leaders on the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday jointly proposed a set of changes to help fix the huge problem of tax-refund identity theft.

There’s no immediate prospect of congressional action on the bill. But the fact that there’s agreement from Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the committee’s ranking Republican, gives a definite boost to the legislation’s chances.

House and Senate negotiators today announced a deal on legislation that would provide the Department of Veterans Affairs with at least $15 billion, much of it in emergency funding to address its problems and allow the VA secretary to more easily hold senior executives accountable and to fire them as necessary. Both chambers are expected to approve the agreement by week’s end.

The rest of the issues on Congress’s plate? Not so clear. With a week left before the five-week congressional recess, here’s a rundown of where things stand from the Wall Street Journal’s team on Capitol Hill. Read More »

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